One mile into my daily jog, New Yorker
poetry podcast in my ear, hoping for insights
and hardware to Sherpa me up poetic Himalayas,
and Mary Karr is reading Terrence Hayes’
Ars Poetica with Bacon, which leads her
and host Paul Muldoon, to a number of salutary
comments on rashers, including Mary’s confession
that she never ever passes up bacon, and that given
our genetic proximity to Sus scrofa, eating bacon
is a form of Eucharistal sacrament, although as a Jew
I’m thrown a bit by the host’s claim, though both Mary
and Paul are Catholics so they’re likely correct,
and this baconian discourse reminds me of the tale
of Rabbi Jacob and Priest Patrick, lifelong friends
and golfing buddies. They’re sipping a wee dram
after their latest eighteen holes, because it’s
always five o’clock somewhere, when Patrick
asks his friend, tell me Jacob, have you ever broken
one of your religion’s commandments? Jacob pauses
a hot minute and responds Yes, one time while
on vacation I took several strips of bacon
from the hotel breakfast bar up to my room
and ate them. Frankly, it wasn’t anything special.
Jacob then queried Patrick—same question—Patrick
replies I’ve trusted you for the thirty years
of our friendship, but for this I must insist
on clerical confidentiality. To be honest,
when I was young in my vocation, and had emotions
hot as the Mojave winds, I had sex with a young
widowed congregant. Jacob raises his right hand
to his mouth and whispers It’s a hell of a lot better
than bacon, isn’t it.
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